Liverpool City Council will outline proposals for revamped public realm including a new square outside Lime Street station at an event due to take place this Wednesday.

Part of a wider £45m connectivity programme announced in 2016, the public realm works will see St George’s Plateau significantly widened. Beginning in 2020, this work will see Lime Street reduced to single carriageway for northbound traffic only, with access into the city centre via St John’s Lane.

The proposals for Lime Street also include a water feature at the southern end of the plateau, within the city’s World Heritage Site.

A new bus park and layover is also proposed on Old Haymarket; this will include the repositioning of the Queen Square bus station for northbound bus routes, and the Liverpool One bus station for southbound buses.

A public consultation on the plans was held in March, and since then there have been some changes including the removal of a cycle lane along Lime Street.

The event takes place at Central Library on Wednesday 12 December between 10am and 6pm.

Cllr James Noakes, cabinet member for highways, said: “For millions of people Lime Street is the gateway into Liverpool and these stunning new designs illustrate the potential for creating a world class welcome.

“A new public square outside Lime Street station and an expanded plateau at St George’s Hall will transform the experience of arriving in Liverpool and how people interact with arguably the UK’s greatest collection of iconic cultural venues.

‘’We’ve made some minor changes to the design as a result of the original public consultation but these plans for Lime Street cannot be taken in isolation. They are key to the wider transformation of how the city centre functions in the future.

“This redesign of Lime Street is critical to the proposed new bus hub and changes to Queen Square bus station both of which will ultimately create a cleaner, greener city centre for everyone to enjoy.”

The works at Lime Street are part of the first phase of the City Centre Connectivity project, which focusses on re-engineering routes in and out of the city’s commercial and retail districts. Graham was picked as main contractor for the scheme last month.

Works will begin in January next year with the widening of pavements, removal of bus layovers, and public realm improvements along Victoria Street, running between North John Street to the Queensway Tunnel. This will complete in October.

Other elements of this first package of works include the new city centre bus hub on Old Haymarket, which will go before the city council’s planning committee on Tuesday 8 January.

Improved connections to the Knowledge Quarter Gateway are also set to get under way with works to Brownlow Hill, starting in April and completing in September next year.

Also starting in April, Graham will carry out improvements to Tithebarn Street and Moorfields, with work continuing until November. There will also be works to expand the existing coach parking facility at Riverside Drive to accommodate 30 additional vehicles; this will start in July and complete in November.

Fantastic and long overdue! At last St. George’s Plateau will see the public realm match its status as the focal point of a World Heritage City.
This will become the city square it always should have been and on scale greater and a lot grander than in most cities. With a quality hotel reinstated at Waterhouse’s masterpiece, opposite St. George’s Hall, it’s only a matter of time before St. John’s is redeveloped too.

What provision will there be for travelling by bus from South Liverpool to North Liverpool if the bus stations serving these areas are separate? Liverpool 1 for the South, and Queens Square for the North. Will passengers have to walk between the two bus stations?
Will motorists be able to drive from Berry Street to London Road, and reverse? How will motorists be able to access Lime Street Station?

Including a cycle lane here would have been an easy win. Such a cycle lane would have been an important step towards having safe cycle routes close to the city centre. Now they come up with an expensive scheme which seems to make Northbound cycling outside St Georges hall impossible! The council pretends it’s committed to a five fold increase in cycling, but in practice generally does more harm than good. Manchester must be laughing at us.

This looks good. It would be even better if something could be done to improve the façade of St John’s shopping centre. How about concealing it behind a multi-tiered “green wall” of vegetation rather than ugly plastic sheeting?